Food Friday: Dogswell Nutrisca Lamb and Chickpea Recipe Dog Food

Dogswell Nutrisca was the first non-potato, low-glycemic kibble I can remember seeing. When it first hit my local pet stores, they sold promotional 2 lb bags for $3. Brisbane was eating a homemade raw diet at the time, but I used kibble for training treats and this was a great option at the time. I could buy a small bag and not have to worry about it going bad before we used it all. Nutrisca kibble originally came in lamb, chicken, and salmon recipes. The concept of making dog food out of chickpeas seemed so radical a decade ago!

The Company

Dogswell has been around since 2004, their flagship product is their Happy Hips glucosamine-fortified chicken jerky. Obviously they must have branched out into dog food fairly quickly, since I was buying promotional bags of it in 2006. 

Dogswell does use a co packer, Tuffy's Pet Foods actually produces Nutrisca. For this reason, Dogswell is more of a dog food marketing company. Tuffy's is the maker of Pure Vita though, they have some pretty serious manufacturing technology and very few recalls of products from their facilities. It's proably impossible for a little startup like Dogswell to make a state-of-the-art kibble production facility so I'm glad they chose Tuffy's as their co packer.

The Food

I bought this particular bag of Nutrisca Lamb and Chickpea Recipe kibble for Sisci and Ru. Brisbane can't eat it because it contains chicken fat. I used to use the salmon version for training treats for him, until I discovered his issue with eggs. Poor allergy dog.

Nutrisca kibbles are very small, so they should be great for little tiny dogs. Unfortunately, Ru won't eat them. He's a picky beast, and mostly refused to eat this food at all. Sisci loved it, though.

This is a grain-free, potato-free food that I like to recommend for diabetic and overweight dogs, as well as ones with yeast issues. It seems to be a very digestible food too, I've had several clients and work switch to Nutrisca and see improvement in their dog's stomach issues.

The Verdict

This is a very high quality dog food. The Dog Food Advisor site rates all of the Nutrisca foods as five out of five stars. They are suitable for all life stages, and this particular food has a moderate caloric content of 370 calories per cup. I don't think I would choose this as an everyday food for my dogs at this point because Brisbane is allergic and Ru won't eat it, but it would be a perfectly reasonable choice for Sisci.

Food Friday: Alternative Protein Roundup, Pork Edition

My quest for Brisbane-safe foods has brought us a variety of pork-based treats and dog food over the nearly two years I've been blogging here. We've already summed up the venison- and rabbit-based goodies, so this week it's time to take a look at an often-overlooked alternative protein. I'm not a huge ham or sausage fan, but I think we can all agree that bacon is awesome. I even chop it into tiny pieces and toss it with various training treats to make them extra-awesome.

Why Aren't There More Pork-Based Dog Foods?

Photo by Erin Koski

Chicken is by far the most common animal protein found in dog food, beef is the second most common, and lamb third in my own experience reading infinite ingredient labels. Pork is supposed to be a poor-man's meat, cheap and plentiful right? So why isn't everyone making dog food out of it?

The first reason I've heard for not feeding pork to dogs is trichinosis, or trichinellosis. This is a parasite transmitted through consumption of raw or undercooked meat of infected animals. The worms live in the muscles until the meat is eaten, then they are released to infect the new host. This used to be a major issue with pork in particular until laws passed in 1980, along with good food storage and handling practices like freezing pork for several weeks before cooking it. Today, trichinellosis is extremely rare, with around 20 cases reported annually in the United States according to the CDC. Most of these are not from consuming commercially-raised pork though, they are from eating raw or undercooked wild game meats.

The second reason I've heard for not feeding pork to dogs is because it supposedly causes pancreatitis. Given that Brisbane has eating tons of raw pork bones without developing it, I'm not terribly worried. The association mostly seems to be between dogs eating super-rich fat scraps and getting pancreatitis, and obviously pet food manufacturers are monitoring the fat and protein levels in their products. It mostly seems that some companies in the industry are leery of using pork just because of their customers' outdated or inaccurate information. This is actually a good thing though, because it means most dogs have never been fed pork, so it can be used as an alternative protein and part of an elimination diet.

Pork Dog Foods

It seems that some of the very best dog food companies use pork as an alternative protein. Primal offers pork-based versions of both their Nuggets and Pronto foods, and both of these use only pork and some veggies so they can be useful for helping sort out food sensitivities. Acana Singles Pork and Butternut Squash is the only kibble we've tried so far that only used pork protein.

Companies seem to be more likely to make canned foods out of pork, rather than kibble Wild Calling offers one that is just pork and vitamins to make it a complete diet. Fromm's Four Star Shredded Pork Entree is the most appetizing food we sell at work, if a dog won't eat that they won't eat anything. Nature's Variety Instinct Limited Ingredient Diets only offers a canned pork food, but offers a kibble variety for each of their other proteins. Natural Balance offers a wild boar and brown rice canned food, but no boar kibble. We got a carton of Caru Real Pork Stew in our November BarkBox.

Pork Dog Treats

All our favorite pork-based dog treats were discovered via BarkBox. The Bixbi Essentials Pork Jerky arrived in the 2014 December box. Two years ago we got some PetSafe Indigo Smokehouse Strips in our March box, last year we got some Healthy Dogma Bacon Hearts in the March Box. The August Box brought us some Wagatha's Maple Bacon Biscuits. Surprisingly, our favorite pork-based chew, the bacon-flavored Dogswell Boundless, did not come in a subscription box. 

Treat Tuesday: Dogswell Boundless Chews

These Boundless Long-Lasting Chews by Dogswell are shaped like infinity symbols. That's why I couldn't resist giving them a try. In case anyone was wondering, they don't last an infinitely long time. I found them at my local Petco, and the Dogswell website oddly does not mention them at all. In fact, there's almost no mention of them whatsoever on the internet as of December 2015. Why is that?

According to the Dogswell Facebook, "Boundless Long Lasting Chews are actually a new product and as of now are only being sold in Petco stores." Apparently they aren't particularly being advertised or promoted, either. Maybe they're only available in certain test markets?

At my local Petco, Dogswell Boundless chews come in two sizes, for medium and large dogs. They are made in the USA, but some of the ingredients may be imported. The ones I bought were medium, for 21-50 lb dogs, and they were $5.99 each. They were available in two flavors, chicken and bacon. Shockingly, the bacon flavor is safe for Brisbane's many food allergies. It contains no poultry products, no egg products, no corn, no barley, and no sweet potato. Amazing! Boundless chews are made out of potato, tapioca, glycerin, peas, milk, bacon fat, sunflower oil, and some vitamins.

Sometimes 5 minutes feels like infinity...

The fine print on the packaging says this chew is not suitable for dogs under 10 lbs. I noticed this after the fact, but Ru ate a 2" piece of Sisci's infinity chew and lived to tell the tale.

Good For: Lasting about as long as a bully stick of similar size while being totally non-stinky. Dogs with beef, poultry, egg, grain, or sweet potato allergies.

Not Good For: Lasting longer than a bully stick of similar size. dogs with potato, tapioca, pea, or bacon allergies.

How Much We Like Them: Brisbane finished his in about 15 minutes flat. Sisci took almost an hour on the project and Ru managed to steal the last bit when she was momentarily distracted. I will probably buy these again as an occasional treat, mostly because I like the shape. If they were a couple of dollars cheaper I'd totally stock up.

Food Friday: Dogswell Nutrisca Raw Freeze Dried Bites

Nutrisca now has Raw Freeze Dried Bites in addition to their kibble and canned foods. These little squares are made with either chicken or beef, including bone and organ meats. Other ingredients include apples, peas, cranberries, and of course chickpeas. Nutrisca is all about the chickpeas.

The Company

Dogswell was founded in 2004, and I first became aware of their food a couple of years later. When I was trying to get Brisbane to lose some weight I was still doing a lot of raw feeding, but I wanted to use kibble as training treats. Nutrisca's foods were just becoming available in my local stores and so they were being heavily promoted. I could get a 1 lb sample bag for $2, and it was being advertised as good for fat dogs with its low glycemic index.

It looks like Dogswell was acquired in 2009 by TSG Consumer Partners, but they seem to be operating independently. Dogswell got their start with jerky treats manufactured in China. This led to at least on treat recall due to contamination with antibiotic residue in 2013. Despite this, the company continues to defend its manufacturing practices and insists it hold the facilities to strict standards, and uses third party testing to ensure purity. While most of the newer Dogswell products and all of their dog food is made in the USA, their website proudly states that this is only due to consumer pressure and not anything wrong with things sourced and made in China where standards are often more like guidelines.

Dogswell does not own their own manufacturing facility as far as I can tell. Their canned food appears to be co packed by Simmons Pet Foods, who also produce canned food for Nature's Variety and a bunch of other companies. Their kibble is produced by Tuffy's Pet Foods, who recalled some Nutrisca kibble earlier this year for salmonella contamination. 

Sometimes cats happen.

The Food

These are really dense little nuggets, much denser than Stella & Chewy's or Wysong Archetype. The Dogswell website has them listed under treats, but the package states that the food meets AAFCO standards for a complete and balanced diet. I don't think I could use them for treats, they are much too big, and crumble when I finally succeed in breaking them up a bit.

The Verdict

I got these when Ru had a dental cleaning that included removing nine tiny teeth. He was supposed to eat soft food for a week or so, and he is ridiculously picky. He eats Stella & Chewy's most of the time as long as I don't add any liquid or put anything on it, so I figured he might be interested in these. I was wrong, he doesn't like them nearly as much. He eats these about as willingly as he eats any type of kibble or canned food, which is to say he'll eat them about half the time with no rhyme or reason why or why not. Sisci is far less picky and likes them, and Brisbane adores them as he adores all things edible.

These rate five out of five stars on the Dog Food Advisor website, with no worrisome ingredients. They are only available in 5oz bags, no big bags for big dogs. Obviously Dogswell isn't really expecting anyone to be feeding these as a complete diet to anything but a super picky tiny dog.